


Adrift

by UbiquitousMixie



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:09:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/pseuds/UbiquitousMixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being rescued from the blackbird, Lee Adama struggles with his new lease on life and turns to the only person who can remind him how to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-“Resurrection Ship Pt 2” and “Epiphanies.” This is my first attempt at writing for this fandom, so I’m hoping I managed to do these characters justice. Let me know what you think! Comments are love!

Lee Adama has been drifting for his entire life, his destiny mapped out by some pre-designed plan that has had little to do with his own interests and more to do with his name and his family. It never seemed to belong to him, not really. When he wasn't running away from making choices, he was flying, getting as far away from taking the responsibility for anchoring himself as he could. When the blackbird went and he was set adrift in the vast openness of space, the choices were his, rushing at him with more clarity than he's ever had in his life. He chose to stay adrift. He didn't want to be anchored.

He’s still drifting, in mind if not in body. Right now he is anchored in the arms of Laura Roslin. Lee chose to be with her now, made the specific decision to forgo precious rack time in order to be with the only person who has ever managed to make him feel like more than just a marionette doll. Most of his finest moments of free will lead back to the president and even now, his mind fogged with confused futility, Lee feels like this choice is the closest thing to salvation that he can find.

He attempts to shut his mind to his thoughts by sliding his hand up the hot curve of her waist so that he may palm her breast. Stroking his thumb against the rigid peak of her nipple makes him feel like he’s got some autonomy in this frakked up world. But then he’s drowning again, because the world is frakked up and he had been completely willing to give up his place in it. He stands apart from the rest of the fleet; even though the hows and wheres have been stripped away from the human race’s instinctual desire to live, they’ve collectively chosen to fight for their survival under whatever terms the gods have dictated for them. They have blindly decided to make their way in the universe. It was their choice. Lee didn’t make this choice: it was made for him.

"Lee," she whispers, her voice low and throaty in his ear. She winds her arms more tightly around his neck, her nails digging sharply into his shoulders. He drives his hips a little harder against hers and she groans, expelling little huffs of hot breath against his neck. She says his name again, her voice laced with desperation. It’s less about her desire to come and more about her awareness that he is not fully present in the moment with her. She knows that he’s still out there amongst the stars and the cold.

She wants to ground him, wants to remind him what living is like. Is this living? Is it frakking the woman his father is in love with? Is it sneaking around and lying?

He doesn't know--he can't remember what living feels like, but he does remember this. He remembers how tight she's always been for him, how wet and ready and eager. He chooses not to think about the rest because if he does, if he focuses on the guilt, he'll fly away.

He already hates himself for this, but the violent surge of self-loathing is not enough to stop him from thrusting forcefully into her. She moans in pleasure and he closes his eyes to it, wishing to both block her out and drown in the sounds of her desire. It's always been like this with her; it's always been a struggle with his morality and his loyalty to his father and his confused feelings for someone else...but it never stops him.

He never stops coming back to her.

They're in her makeshift bed, which is entirely too small for just her own slender body, much less the two of them. They manage--they always do. Her hands are splayed across his back, memorizing the taut outlines of his muscles. She's always marveled at his body as if it's some gift from the gods; he's worked hard to keep himself fit and there is always a secret thrill in knowing that her reverence of his body is something akin to worship. She scratches her nails down his spine and he thrusts deeper. They gasp together, pausing for a moment to revel in just how frakking good it feels to be joined like this again.

It’s the first time since the accident that he’s felt anything. It’s a shock to him to feel such need and such tenderness. He knows with absolute certainty that this could never have happened with anyone else.

Even so, this was an accident. It was never meant to happen. They had put an end to this, to the secrets and the lies and the guilt of frakking around behind everyone's backs, but things changed and Lee cannot help but wonder if they weren't always destined to wind up right back here, sweaty and needy in Laura's bed on Colonial One. She was supposed to have died a painful death and, being spared thanks to the scientific genius of Giaus Baltar, she would live to see her people to Earth. It should have mattered to her that she was granted a second chance at life, but her only focus is and has always been on fulfilling her destiny.

Lee could have--should have--died in the cold vacuum of space. He had been ready for death. He had been ready to let his life slip through his fingers. He had wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything--not his father's approval or his grandfather's passion for law or even his burgeoning feeling for his dead brother's girl--and he hates giving up what he wants. Lee has always followed his impulse, has always been gifted in receiving exactly what he thought he wanted. Even though he has no frakking idea what he wants or who he is, he's always gotten lucky somehow.

Maybe that's why he lived when he had been ready to die.

That's what drew him back to Laura's bed in the first place. Being with her has been the only thing he's truly felt passionate about.

Before, when she had been dying and he had been living, they couldn’t stay away from each other. It had always been something special, something uniquely theirs. It had been Apollo and his president until it wasn't. They couldn't handle the guilt or the secrets. Ending their sexual relationship had been a mutual decision and he had been so caught up in what he thought was life that he almost convinced himself that he didn’t need her.

But he does, and maybe he always has.

Lee doesn’t allow himself to be swayed by any romantic notion about what this is. This reunion isn't about love or regret about the past. This is gratitude in its most primal form: mutual appreciation for the other's survival. He doesn't care that he survived, but he cares that she did. He cares that she’ll have a chance to fulfill her destiny. He cares that the fleet won’t lose its fearless leader. He cares that she has the chance to live again.

He cares most about the implications of this interlude in her darkened cabin. So focused was she on being the dying leader that she became that dying leader, losing Laura in the process. Now, in this moment, while her teeth tug at his earlobe, the survival of the human race isn’t Laura Roslin’s priority. She is not concerned with political agendas or even her own health: she is focused solely on him. It’s more than just the fact that he sees her as Laura the Woman rather than Laura the President. She sees in him a miracle. She forgets about her own miracle of surviving cancer and sees instead that her Captain Apollo beat the odds. Lee suspects that it’s given her hope that there are still miracles to be had in this bitter, endless war.

Perhaps it’s this hope that made her so willing. Perhaps he means something to her. Perhaps she simply needs him as much as he needs her. Whatever the reason, Lee is grateful.

They cannot get close enough to each other. They cling to each other as if this is the last time they will ever be like this and for all he knows, it is. He grips her hips hard, knowing he will leave imprints of his fingers long after he has gone back to Galactica. He drives himself even harder inside of her, burying himself completely within her. She groans and whimpers, her legs tightening around his waist. He loves her like this, when the president unravels and she’s just Laura, completely undone.

This is the moment when he would pull back and watch her face, but he keeps his eyes firmly closed and buries his face in the crook of her neck. He knows exactly what she looks like: forehead creased and mouth open as she succumbs completely to the pleasure she feels. He resents her a little, knowing she is completely immersed in their coupling. His mind is in a hundred fractured little pieces, in space and in the blackbird and in Kara's rack and in his father's quarters and in the CIC and in his own viper. He is everywhere and nowhere, lost completely. Lee Adama survived, but he feels like a casualty of war.

"Lee," she whispers again, her nails scratching gently against the nape his neck. It's soft, much softer than the jab of her heels at the backs of his thighs.

He can't stop himself. He looks at her then despite the dangerous implications that lie in the depths of her green eyes. In each fleck of gold and emerald and gray he sees life. He sees possibility. He sees her need to have this moment of connection with him.

He feels like a prize idiot for taking this for granted. She could be--should be--with his father, but she has chosen to anchor herself to Lee. She's giving him a gift: a beacon of light to drift towards. After tonight, they will not do this again; he knows better than to believe that she is giving him hope for a future together. What she does give, however, is a reminder of what he's lucky enough to have: life. He has a purpose, whether he's chosen it or whether it's been chosen for him. She survived and she needs him to survive with her.

"I'm with you," he says finally. "I'm with you."

Laura smiles and his chest tightens (could the world really have continued if that smile ceased to exist?). They kiss, their lips barely brushing, before he buries his face in her hair. She clings tightly to him, drawing her legs higher around his waist to allow him to slide deeper within her. He lets out a grunt as he quickens his pace, her hips swiveling to match him. He can feel the life coursing through every fiber of his being like an electric current and he loses himself in her, forgetting the blackbird and his destiny and the consequences.

They climax almost simultaneously, their bodies shuddering together. It’s the most intense orgasm he’s had in a long time and he suspects that it’s the same for Laura. They’re both shivering when they come back to themselves and though he knows he should get dressed, he’s not done needing her. He slips out of her and shifts their bodies so that she is lying on top of him. He wonders if she’ll protest, if she’ll realize that this needs to end before it can begin again, but she simply rests her head on his sweat-slicked chest. He watches her concentrate on the sound of his beating heart. The corner of her mouth turns up in a reassured smile and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He soothes his hand along the slope of her back and wonders again if this was always meant to happen. He wonders if he ever truly wanted to die or if he simply needed something to remind him of what it means to be alive in a time of such uncertainty. Despite the odds and despite the utter fragility of life, they were both saved. Their lives were given back to them.

Lee kisses the top of Laura’s head.

He’s no longer adrift.

\---


End file.
